Billet and Pitou were to officiate in the ceremonies and they went to join their companions on the main street. Hotel-keepers had lowered their prices and many houses were open to their brothers from the country. The farther they came the more kindly they were treated, if any distinction was made.
On its part the Assembly had received a portion of the shock. A few days before, it had abolished hereditary nobility, on the motion of Marquis Lafayette.
Contrarily, the influence of Mirabeau was felt daily. A place was assigned in the Federation to him as Orator. Thanks to so mighty a champion, the court won partisans in the opposition ranks. The Assembly had voted liberal sums to the King for his civil list and for the Queen, so that they lost nothing by pensioning Mirabeau.
The fact was, he seemed quite right in appealing to the rustics; the Federalists whom the King welcomed seemed to bring love for royalty along with enthusiasm for the National Assembly.
Unhappily the King, dull and neither poetical nor chivalric, met the cheers coolly.
Unfortunately, also, the Queen, too much of a Lorrainer to love the French and too proud to greet common people, did not properly value these outbursts of the heart.
Besides, poor woman, she had a spot on her sun: one of those gloomy fits which clouded her mind.
She had long loved Count Charny, lieutenant of the Royal Lifeguards, but his loyalty to the King, who had treated him like a brother in times of danger, had rendered him invulnerable to the woman's wiles.
Marie Antoinette was no longer a young woman and sorrow had touched her head with her wing, which was making the threads of silver appear in the blonde tresses—but she was fair enough to bewitch a Mirabeau and might have enthralled George Charny.